Boyfriend pleads guilty to murder after being snared by his
'GTG' shorthand on text message

Faked: Steven Pieper pleaded guilty after his 'GTG' text message was found

An ex-boyfriend who killed a pretty student was snared by police after he used text shorthand in a phone message pretending to be the young woman, prosecutors have revealed today.

The body of Jenni-Lynn Watson, 20, was found in a shed near Clay central Park in New York after she had been missing since November 18 last year.

Her ex-boyfriend Steven Pieper tried to cover up the killing by sending a message from Miss Watson's phone to a friend.

But prosecutor William Fitzpatrick said police discovered that he had used the shortd 'GTG' to mean 'got to go' which was an abbreviation Miss Watson had never used.

Pieper pleaded guilty in Onondaga County Court in Syracuse, New York on Tuesday to second-degree murder for strangling Watson to death.

He is due to be sentenced to between 23 years and life at a hearing on March 28 after a plea arrangement to avoid a trial. He must serve 23 years before he gets a parole hearing.

Miss Watson, a dance major, was on Thanksgiving break from Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania, when she went missing.

Watson and Pieper had been in a turbulent relationship for 18 months when Pieper went over to Watson's home the morning of November 19.

Undersheriff Warren Darby said on Friday that more than 100 people were searching for her. He said the search expanded from 600 acres to 1,200 acres.

Dressed as an angel: Jenni-Lyn Watson in an undated picture, on her mobile phone at a fancy dress party dressed as an angel

Fun-loving: Pictures of Jenni-Lyn - on a website dedicated to finding her - show the 20-year-old as a vibrant and witty woman

Found dead: Jenni-Lyn, of Liverpool, New York, disappeared on November 19 after going home for Thanksgiving

Dancing passion: Jenni-Lyn loved ballet and was a junior dance major at Mercyhurst College

Her parents had told investigators it was ‘uncharacteristic’ for the pretty college student to go off on her own without telling anybody.

A massive search for her ended with the discovery of her remains at Clay Central Park in North Syracuse.

Miss Watson’s murder stunned the entire community of Liverpool, which had thrown itself into finding her.

A website and a Facebook page was set up to help find her - the Facebook page attracted more than 27,000 members.

Pictures posted on both show Miss Watson enjoying herself like any girl her age - at a senior ball, at the seaside with friends and at a party in fancy dress as an angel.

The district attorney said that Watson told Pieper she wanted to have other relationships and he became angry and killed her.

Pieper allegedly put Miss Watson's body in her car and drove off before he was stopped several minutes later because there was no front license plate on his vehicle, Fitzpatrick said. Pieper, who received a warning, decided then to dump the body.

Search: Police comb a wooded area where Jenni-Lynn's mobile phone was last used

Gruesome discovery: Police found Jenni-Lyn's body inside a storage unit in the park where they had been concentrating their search

Sergeant John D'Eredita of the
Onondaga County Sheriff's Office said two search teams and sniffer dogs
had combed around 200 acres of woodland bordering an industrial area in
Clay, a short distance away from Liverpool.

Fitzpatrick told CNN that police looked at Pieper's phone, which was left November 19, 2010, at Watson's home in the Syracuse suburb of Liverpool, and pored over records.

The prosecutor said that shorthand for "got to go" was a term used by Pieper not Watson.

' I don't think he went over there with the intent to kill her. He didn't have a long-term plan,' Fitzpatrick said.

'On that particular day he was consumed with evil and he killed that poor little girl than no other reason than she wanted to move on with her life.

Friends and relatives said her disappearance was 'abnormal' as they prayed for her safe return

Jenni-Lynn, shown here in a ballerina pose in an image from her Facebook page, was last seen just five miles from her home

She was last seen on Friday morning at the family home by her parents and 17-year-old sister.

Defense attorney Scott Brenneck told CNN affiliate YNN: 'Steven made it clear that he did not want to put the Watson family or his family through a trial in this matter, from the very beginning.

'So after a review of the case, it was an appropriate way to resolve it.'